other colonies to join with Virginia in
raising troops to settle the ownership of the disputed territory. From
Governor Dobbs of North Carolina he received an immediate response.
By means of logic, sarcasm, and the entire force of his prerogatives,
Dinwiddie secured from his own balking Assembly 10,000 pounds with which
to raise troops. From Maryland he obtained nothing. There were three
prominent Marylanders in the Ohio Company, but--or because of this--the
Maryland Assembly voted down the measure for a military appropriation.
On June 18, 1754, Dinwiddie wrote, with unusually full spelling for him:

"I am perswaded had His Majesty's Com'ds to the other Colonies been
duely obey'd, and the necessary Assistance given by them, the Fr. wou'd
have long ago have been oblig'd entirely to have evacuated their usurp'd
Possession of the King's Lands, instead of w'ch they are daily becoming
more formidable, whilst every Gov't except No. Caro. has amus'd me with
Expectations that have proved fruitless, and at length refuse to give
any Supply, unless in such a manner as must render it ineffectual."

This saddened mood with its deliberate penmanship did not last long.
Presently Dinwiddie was making a Round Robin of himself in another
series of letters to Governors, Councilors, and Assemblymen, frantically
beseeching them for "H. M'y's hono." and their own, and, if not,
for "post'r'ty," to rise against the cruel French whose Indians were
harrying the borders again and "Basely, like Virmin, stealing and
carrying off the helpless infant"--as nice a simile, by the way, as any
Sheridan ever put into the mouth of Mrs. Malaprop.

Dinwiddie saw his desires thwarted on every hand by the selfish spirit
of localism and jealousy which was more rife in America in those days
than it is today. Though the phrase "capitalistic war" had not yet been
coined, the great issues of English civilization on this continent were
befogged, for the majority in the colonies, by the trivial fact that the
shareholders in the Ohio Company stood to win by a vigorous prosecution
of the war and to lose if it were not prosecuted at all. The irascible
Governor, however, proceeded with such men and means as he could obtain.

And now in the summer of 1754 came the "overt act" which precipitated
the inevitable war. The key to the valley of the Ohio was the tongue of
land at the Forks, where the Allegheny and the Monongahela join their
waters in the Beautiful River. This